norman@sunybcs.UUCP (Stephen Norman) (10/15/84)
We had a guest speaker who, for an hour, told us how she and her friends
are able to remove themselves from their body and go "anywhere". She gave
many examples about her own experiences (impossible to verify). To re-
enforce her remarks, she made reference to a Stanford University study that
"proved" that people had this ability. She gave accuracy ratings (from the
study) of 95-100 percent. She also stated that the study also found that
a group of "regular" people scored between 85-100 percent. I decided to per-
sue the matter further and asked her where she read about the study and when
it was done. She replied it was in a book she read (oh, but she forgot the
title). Is there anyone who can either verify this data? I'd really like
to here about the Stanford study (if it was actually done), it's findings,
and most importantly, where it was published.
Many thanks.
UUCP: {cmc12,hao,harpo}!seismo!rochester!rocksanne!rocksvax!sunybcs!norman
{allegra,decvax}!watmath!sunybcs!norman
ARPA, CSnet: norman.buffalo@rand-relaywmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (10/17/84)
I suspect that the Stanford "out-of-body" experience study referred to by your speaker was the SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) ESP experiments reported on by the PBS "Nova" program in its broadcast about various aspects of ESP. This was aired last season, and it might have been a repeat from the preceeding year. In these experiments, a person in a lab at SRI described the surroundings of one of the researchers, who drove to various locations in the Bay Area based on instructions chosen at random from a set of many possible locations and routes. Does this sound like what was described by the speaker? If so, you might want to check with your local PBS station to see if they have some sort of Nova program guide with citations or references. I'm sorry, but I cannot recall the experimenters' names. Will Martin USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
grass@uiucdcsb.UUCP (10/25/84)
<> Martin Gardner discussed this research in his book: Science: Good, Bad and Bogus. I believe this fell at least in the Bad category, and some such fell in the Bogus. -- J. Grass
mcewan@uiucdcs.UUCP (10/29/84)
The experimenters are Puthoff and Targ, whom James Randi calls "the Laurel and Hardy of PSI". Read Randi's book "Flim-Flam" for an analysis of P&T's experiments. Scott McEwan pur-ee!uiucdcs!mcewan Just because something is obvious doesn't mean that it's true.
gino@voder.UUCP (Gino Bloch) (11/02/84)
> I suspect that the Stanford "out-of-body" experience study referred to by > your speaker was the SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) > ESP experiments reported on by the PBS "Nova" program in its broadcast > about various aspects of ESP. This was aired last season, and it might have > been a repeat from the preceeding year. > > I'm sorry, but I cannot recall > the experimenters' names. > > Will Martin The names are Puthoff & Targ (Hal P. & Russell T., I think). -- Gene E. Bloch (...!nsc!voder!gino)